Generally, when a damaged tendon is surgically repaired, the two opposed remaining stumps of the tendon are held by the surgeon using clamps or hemostats, then are tied together by sutures after putting locking stitches in place in each stump. This standard technique is widely criticized because the excessive handling of the tendon stumps may lead to further fraying and weakening of the tendon and may increase the risk of adhesions, and because there is typically some slack in the knots holding the two stumps together, which leads to a gap.
Due to the fact that the ends of a tendon to be repaired are frayed, there is a significant difficulty to conceive an efficient device for assisting a surgeon in tendon repair, which explains why the aforesaid surgical standard technique has been performed for decades. However, this standard technique often corresponds to an unsatisfactory compromise between preservation of the frayed tissues and control of the diameter of the repaired tendon.